The Menominee River, named after the Menominee Indians of Wisconsin, is the largest river system in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It forms the border between northeast Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and is currently the focus of a struggle over a proposed metallic sulfide mine known as the Back Forty Project.
August 20, 2020
Dear WRPC Member and Friends of the Menominee River,
Aquila Resources continues to provide misleading and inaccurate information about the status of the Back Forty project in its most recent financial report. The company’s June 2020 report states, “The Company has received the four primary permits required to commence construction and operations at Back Forty.”
However, the company has not yet submitted a revised Dam Safety Permit application since Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) rejected Aquila’s original application as incomplete and requested additional information. According to EGLE, “Aquila is not authorized to begin construction of the mine and will not be able to proceed until all permits, including the Dam Safety Permit have been approved by EGLE.”
Back Forty Mine along Wisconsin border faces insufficient funding, increasing opposition.
by Al Gedicks
July 26, 2020
![Aftermath of the Brumadinho dam collapse in Brazil. Photo by TV NBR [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]](https://urbanmilwaukee.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Resumo_da_agenda_do_Presidente_da_República_26.01.2019_video_screenshot_01_cropped.jpg)
Aftermath of the Brumadinho dam collapse in Brazil. Photo by TV NBR (CC BY 3.0)
The controversial proposed Back Forty open pit metallic sulfide mine on the Michigan-Wisconsin border has suffered major financial and permitting setbacks due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and increasing public concerns over the safety of tailings dams to store mine waste. The proposed mine, would be located next to the Menominee River, which flows into Lake Michigan, and has raised concerns about potential pollution.
May 13, 2020
Eagle Herald
Dear editor,
Thanks to a major pollution cleanup effort by multiple federal and state agencies and citizen groups, the Lower Menominee River will be delisted or removed as an area of concern for pollution and habitat loss. This restoration work took more than two decades and cost at least $200 million, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
February 6, 2020
Dear Editor,
My name is Tom Boerner, I have been involved in two contested cases hearings against permits issued to Aquila by EGLE and have just filed contested case petitions for two more: Air Quality Permit and Amended Part 632 Permit.
February 6, 2020
Dear Editor,
Brumadinho, Brazil again? Why? It is still about water.
One year ago (with 21st-century mining technology — exactly the type Aquila is proposing here) a mining tailings dam collapsed (like one does world-wide roughly every 8 months) dumping millions of tons of toxic sludge killing 270 people. In its path, the surrounding forest, nearby towns and waters were destroyed.
by Michele Bourdieu
February 3, 2020
LANSING, Mich.; KASHENA, Wis. — In its efforts to protect the Menominee River from the dangers of Acid Mine Drainage and to save sacred cultural sites near the river from being destroyed, the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin (MITW) is still pushing back against a federal and state permitting process that ignores their concerns about Aquila Resources’ proposed open-pit sulfide mine threatening both Wisconsin and Michigan, the two states bordering the river.
January 31, 2020
Dear Editor,
A year ago a tailings dam in Brazil, which is exactly the same design that Aquila will be using, failed and collapsed and resulted in the death of over 250 people. The sad part is that this wasn’t the first time such a thing has happened in Brazil. It also happened in November of 2015, a tailings dam burst and killed 19 individuals. One would think the first time it happened, that the country would take measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but no, fast forward to January 2019, it happened again at another site. The mine is still in operation today and the mining company claimed that the structure provided inadequate drainage and couldn’t handle the high water levels. It is easy for us to brush it off as if Brazil is an apathetic country that does not care about its people.
A federal appeals court panel told a Wisconsin tribe this week it can’t review a decision by two federal agencies that reinforced Michigan’s permitting authority over a proposed mine on the Michigan-Wisconsin border.
The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers in 2018 after the agencies failed to address the tribe’s concerns that federal review of a wetlands permit for the mine was warranted.
